Blowing The Doors Off My Story

A cousin of mine posted a picture of my siblings and a group of cousins from our childhood that I had never seen before on FB.

My sister and I were in the center, “dressed to the nines” in dresses with matching stockings (who wears stockings in the Jamaican heat? 😄). I even had a purse in my hand!

My response to seeing the picture was one of pure shock!
It BLEW the lid off several stories in my mind I had about myself and my childhood.

Story #1. I remember being a tomboy so the super girly look with the purse? Wow! I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it with my own two eyes.

Story #2. We were so fashionably dressed – unlike the other cousins in the picture. Not that there was anything wrong with what they were wearing, but we definitely stood out.

Mostly what I remembered was NOT having the things my friends had in high school. Being told “No, we can’t afford that. Who do you think we are? The Rockefeller’s?” when I asked for things my friends had.

The memories I had suppressed came flooding back. How my sister and I were often called “snobs” and teased for being “rich”. The amazing experiences we had as a family and the abundant life we had before my parents split up and things became financially hard.

Suddenly, a flash of insight!
The internal wall I keep periodically hitting as my business grows. The inexplicable sense of dread that comes up when things are going really well. The lack of trust that it will last. Waiting for the “other shoe to drop” which caused me to ensure high profitability in my business but limited my willingness to invest in the level of support I needed to grow past a certain point.

This stemmed from my experience of having it all and then it all going away. It being completely out of my control. Wow!